1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and a medical wound dressing for aspirating, irrigating and/or cleansing wounds, and a method of treating wounds using such apparatus for aspirating, irrigating and/or cleansing wounds. It relates in particular to such an apparatus, wound dressing and method that can be easily applied to a wide variety of, but in particular chronic, wounds, to cleanse them of materials that are deleterious to wound healing, whilst retaining materials that are beneficial in some therapeutic aspect, in particular to wound healing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Before the present invention, aspirating and/or irrigating apparatus therefor were known, and tended to be used to remove wound exudate during wound therapy. In known forms of such wound therapy, the offtake from the wound, especially when in a highly exuding state, is voided to waste, e.g. to a collection bag, as illustrated in DE-A-4 012 232.
Materials deleterious to wound healing are removed in this way.
However, materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing, such as growth factors, cell matrix components, and other physiologically active components of the exudate from a wound are lost to the site where they can be potentially of most benefit, i.e. the wound bed, when such therapy is applied.
Such known forms of wound dressing and aspiration and/or irrigation therapy systems often create a wound environment under the dressing that thus may result in the loss of optimum performance of the body's own tissue healing processes, and slow healing and/or in weak new tissue growth that does not have a strong three-dimensional structure adhering well to and growing from the wound bed. This is a significant disadvantage, in particular in chronic wounds.
It thus would be desirable to provide a system of therapy which can remove materials deleterious to wound healing from wound exudate, whilst retaining materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing in contact with the wound bed.
Dialysis is a known method of treating bodily fluids such as blood ex vivo, to cleanse them of materials that are deleterious to the body systemically. Removal of such materials by contact with the dialysate is the prime purpose of dialysis, whilst also retaining materials such as blood, cells and proteins. Other materials that may have an additional positive therapeutic action are potentially lost to the system through the dialysis membrane, which is also permeable to them. The balance of such materials in the bodily fluid in recirculation may thus be further depleted.
It would be desirable to provide a system of therapy which can remove materials deleterious to wound healing from wound exudate, without substantially diluting materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing in contact with the wound bed, and which can continuously supply and recirculate such materials to the wound simultaneously.
Dialysis for treating bodily fluids is also a systemic therapy, since the treated fluid is returned to within the body. This is in contrast to a topical therapy in which the treated fluid is recycled outside the body, e.g. to a wound. Most dialysis also requires large amounts of bodily fluids such as blood, and consequently the relevant devices tend not to be portable. Even when in a highly exuding state, chronic wounds produce relatively little fluid to be treated compared with internal bodily systems and relatively little materials that are beneficial in some therapeutic aspect to be retained in the wound and/or its environment.